Are you debating between a custom-built vs. WordPress themes for you website? Read on to learn some of the pros and comes of both.
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) and one of the best tools for building websites. t has two variants, via wordpress.com and wordpress.org, each with different uses to some extent.
With WordPress, you can use a plethora of themes and customizations to build unique designs and custom-built WordPress websites. Also, you can choose among hosting providers and different plans, which will help you have greater control over your web compared to typical website builders.
Growth of WordPress Development with the Latest Statistics
- As of 2022, WordPress remains one of the best tools for building websites, powering 42.9% of the web.
- WooCommerce (The best eCommerce plugin for WordPress) powers around 7% of all eCommerce websites and has a market share of around 25% of the top million sites.
- WordPress has a market share of 64.1% in the CMS market.
- WordPress powers over 14.73% of the top 100 and 30% of the top 10 million websites.
- The WordPress theme directory has around 3972 themes, with many more not listed.
Small Overview on Custom-Built WordPress Website
Custom theme development lets you create unique websites from scratch. You get to design fresh and write your code, which means you follow all the code and standards of WordPress, ensuring an SEO-clean website.
A custom-built WordPress website will help you get rid of unwanted or unnecessary features, thus reducing page size and improving page speed, as a result. You can also expect a better user experience as only needed unique features is taken while building the website.
Small Overview of WordPress Theme-Based Website
Don’t have coding knowledge?
Not to worry, you can still build a website with ready-made WordPress themes. You can choose ready-made templates from a plethora of options based on your choice of category, colours, and style.
Most premium themes have unlimited features like search engine optimization, custom maps, multiple language support, etc. You get access to theme support and documentation to help you understand the functions. Handy WordPress themes let you build professional websites in a short period.
Enumerated below are Point wise information for both the options, i.e., custom-built WordPress website vs. WordPress theme – which one is better for you?
- Control Over How Your Website Looks
Imagine you move to a township with a row of similar houses in design and features. The option will come quickly and easy than going through the laborious task of building a house from scratch. But you will also have no control over the layout and design.
Building a custom website will grant you control over your website’s appearance and the features you want to include. It will help ensure a unique website with a special code for you.
WordPress themes, though a quick solution for people with no coding experience or who need a shorter development time, comes with pre-built themes with no options for removing unused features. Thus, you don’t have much control over how your website looks and functions.
- Reliability And Flexibility of The Website
Custom-built sites let you write your code which consequently helps the website as there is no unnecessary code weight added to the page. You can get rid of needless plugins, code, and potential security breaches as everything is optimized.
In the case of WordPress themes, there might be a lot of functions that you might never use, but you can’t remove them. This extra code adds weight to your page and might cause issues in the future.
As only required plugins are added to custom sites – it makes updates more reliable and enhances the website even more.
However, that is not the case with pre-built templates, as plugins are included in the package.
Custom sites are highly adaptable in terms of both design and functionality.
Your website needs to grow and adapt, as well, as your business grows with time. That requires making time-to-time updates and changes. It comes easy with custom sites, as you can implement the necessary technologies.
However, with pre-built themes, scalability becomes an issue as these sites are less flexible and adaptable since they are built on frameworks that only allow certain modifications.
Custom sites require longer development time and are more expensive than pre-built themes as the websites are built from scratch. Sometimes it might take months to finalize the structure and get everything as needed as everything is designed from scratch and customized according to the needs.
Whereas in the case of pre-built, development time is much shorter, and buying the template is a bit more affordable and usually requires a one-time payment.
Also, WordPress themes do not require any coding knowledge or skill. Anyone with decent computer proficiency can build a website with pre-built themes, which is different in the case of custom sites.
- Support and Functionality
One of the issues with the WordPress theme is that you get less support. When designing sites, web development Firms or developers offer services for each aspect of your site, like planning, development, testing, debugging, etc.
However, in the case of themes, you might find some with excellent 24*7 support, but these are not too common. And often, you will have to rely on the limited support provided in the case of pre-built themes.
Along with that, with pre-built themes, it is difficult to fulfill clients’ demands. Building a website is not just aesthetics – economics and results behind it play an essential role too. Building websites considering factors like competitors, conversion and engagement elements, SEO, etc., is not possible in the case of pre-built themes.
Custom-built and pre-built themes both have their pros and cons and might fit different kinds of businesses depending on their needs. Consider the budget and time (website development time) you are willing to invest in the website to choose the right option for your business.
A WordPress development company can guide you in selecting the right choice as per your requirements.